Page 17 of The Duke's Wicked Widow
When the older woman raised a brow, Ellie blushed. Damnation.
No, actually, this is good. It makes you seem more innocent. Can you possibly blush some more?
Oh, yes, she could.
Excellent.
“Rufus…I visited him in the evenings.” This was true. “A few weeks ago, he was…coherent. My cycles have never been consistent—as you know—and I have not…bled since then.”
Something like glee passed over the maid’s expression as she straightened, and Ellie guessed it had more to do with the delicious gossip she’d just been handed, and less to do with joy over Ellie’s possible salvation.
This lie…this lie was minor, compared to what she’d done with Fawkes.
You are not supposed to be thinking of him—of that, remember?
Because when she did…when she remembered how gentle his touch was, despite his anger…when she remembered how he’d cared enough to make her ready, and then ensured she’d found ecstasy…when she remembered his beautiful arms and his strong jaw and his—
You are doing it again. Focus.
Right. Ellie swallowed. “I cannot be certain, of course,” she demurred, knowing that by planting these seeds with Purcell, she had bought a few extra weeks for her and Merida. “Not yet.”
“That is true,” the maid agreed, pulling Ellie to her feet and steering her toward the bed. “I have laid out the black mourning gown again, hurry.” As if she wasn’t anxious to get to the servants’ quarters to spread this gossip, and was merely doing Ellie a favor. “Of course, one time doesnot a baby make.”
The maid stiffened, as if hearing what she’d just said, and when Ellie raised a brow, the older woman frowned. “I mean, I have heard that. Having never married, I would know nothing about such things.”
One time does not a baby make.
Ellie’s fingers drifted across her stomach again.
The maid’s claim was perfectly logical. Ellie had to fight to push aside the dread growing in her chest.
When she’d concocted this scheme, she’d done so logically. With her cycle being so erratic, it was impossible to guess when the right time to conceive might be.One time does not a baby make. That was silly; plenty of virgins conceived on their wedding nights, and how many unfortunate lasses who believed the honey lies of a passing rake learned one time did indeed make a baby?
Butthistime?
Although she’d held Merida on the carriage ride back to Cumnock House, and prayed for a child of her own, Ellie couldn’t be certain Fawkes’s seed had taken.
You could be certain.Make certain.
Could she? Could she go to him again?
Her maid had been chattering as she helped Ellie into the too-formal-for-sitting-around-all-morning mourning gown, and now her words registered.
“Of course, we all know that your husband’s seed was quite potent. Look at that…childhe sired on the upstairs slut.”
Ellie pressed her lips together.
She’d made it clear, when she’d joined Rufus’s household, that she wanted to hear nothing negative about her husband’s by-blow, nor the poor woman who’d been cast aside without references just for birthing Merida. It was possible, in most upper-crust households, the lord’s new wife would want nothing to do with her husband’s bastard children, and that was why the staff always disparaged the girl.
But Merida was a delight and Rufus had seemed to care for the girl, in an absent-minded sort of way. For all of Rufus’s faults he had done right by his child, and Ellie would do anything to ensure the girl’s trust wouldn’t be broken.
Even if her husband’s family wanted nothing to do with Merida. Or Ellie herself.
“I believe I am ready to face a morning of correspondence as I am, Purcell,” she announced haughtily, pulling away from the maid as soon as her buttons were done up and waving away the offer of a mourning ring.
She needed no more morbid reminders of her losses.
But as she descended the main staircase, still fuming over the way the staff—herhusband’sstaff—always paused before calling Merida “child”, as if they wanted to call her something else, the commotion at the front door caught her attention.
